


The Catfather

by Huffleporg



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Captain Cobra - Freeform, Captain Swan - Freeform, Cat!Emma, Cursed!Killian, Don't be alarmed by the cursed names - still Emma and Killian, Everything's better with cats, F/M, Gen, Just Add Kittens, Once Upon a Time Season Seven, The Aristocats (1970) References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2018-11-03 11:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10965987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huffleporg/pseuds/Huffleporg
Summary: Thomas O'Malley couldn't say he had the perfect life, but after adopting Swan the cat and her two kittens, Thomas finally had a sense of normalcy restored. That was until the day his dead wife's long lost son Henry Mills showed up on his doorstep, claiming that not only is his wife alive, but her name is really Emma, he's really Captain Hook, and that it's his job as her True Love to find her and save her so she can save everyone else.Quite a lot to swallow before breakfast.





	1. Part One: Thomas O'Malley and the (former) Alley Cats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [canwetalkaboutcaptainswan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/canwetalkaboutcaptainswan/gifts).



> Though this is rated "General" there is some language that's between G and T. :)

_Image by bewitching. at TDA._

 

Thomas’s day began with a purr, just like it had every single day since he had adopted the cats. Sleepily, Thomas started patting Swan’s silky coat, trying to recall the last strands of the dream he had been having before his furry alarm clock had woken him up. He had been standing on a dock looking out to the horizon. A sense of calm had filled him in the dream, though now the thought of standing by the water made the anxiety stir up inside of him, even in his partially awake state.

The rough tickling of Swan’s tongue on his fingers brought him back to the fact that he was supposed to be waking up. Thomas rolled over onto his side so he was now face to face with the purring cat. “Morning, Swan,” he said, looking into her bright green eyes.

The cat purred and started to lick his face.

“Stop that,” he said, shooing that cat away, “you lick your arse with that.”

Annoyed, the white cat’s eyes narrowed. Sometimes, Thomas had to believe that Swan could understand human English. Before she could swat at him, however, a familiar thump followed by another turned both man’s and cat’s attentions to the foot of the bed, where two kittens had just landed.

“Morning, kittens.” Thomas figured that now it was time to actually get up and out of bed. He sat up and stretched before reaching out with his right hand to grab the prosthetic on the bedside table. He felt a kitten beginning to knead his back, as if encouraging him to get out of bed faster so they could eat. “Don’t make me go back there,” Thomas joked. Carefully, Thomas made the adjustments that would keep his left “hand” in place and useful throughout the day. It was always a small ordeal to do it right, but the gentle brushing up of Swan against his side made him smile despite the pain of memories and awkwardness of the task.

“Okay then,” he said, getting to his feet. “Let’s get you some breakfast.”

The black kitten let out an excited burke before jumping off the bed and scurrying out the door. His smaller sister scampered out after him.

Thomas wrapped his worn red robe around himself and motioned for Swan to come with him.

In the kitchen Thomas scooped out breakfast for each kitten first. “Here you go, Berlioz.” The black kitten eagerly began eating. “You too, Marie.” He set the bowl down before the white kitten, the spitting image of her mother save for bright blue eyes. Both kittens were letting out contented mews before he finally set down a bowl before the mother cat. “Didn’t forget you.” He stroked her on the head as she blinked at him before she bent down to eat.

No sooner had Thomas stood up did he hear a knock on the door. “Coming!” he said, wondering just why someone would be calling early on a Saturday morning. When he opened the door, Thomas couldn’t stop himself from staring.

The young man standing on the front porch of the duplex was smiling.

Uneasy deja vu made Thomas frown. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, you can… actually, aye, you can.” The man about a decade his junior let out a laugh.

Thomas felt something brush up against his leg and looked down to see Swan peering out from between his legs. Not wanting to chase after his indoor cat, Thomas tried to nudge her away, back to her food, but the curious cat refused to budge. “Who are you?” he asked, looking up at the stranger.

The man’s smile faltered. “I’m Henry Mills.” He held out a hand.

Uncertainly, he said, “Thomas O’Malley.” He reached out to shake the stranger’s hand. Thomas saw the man’s eyes linger on his hand, staring at the silver band on his ring finger.

“And this,” Henry stepped aside to reveal a dark haired girl clutching what looked like a book report to her chest, “is Lucy, my daughter.”

“Is she selling cookies?” She wasn’t wearing a uniform, and he was sure that Girl Scouts didn’t sell cookies in the summer, but it seemed the most reasonable explanation for why this man and his daughter were here.

Lucy shook her head. “No, but we’ve got something better than cookies.”

“Already got my religion, thanks.” Thomas started to close the door, but the strange man stuck his hand out. “Please don’t make me call the cops,” Thomas sighed.

Quickly, the man said, “I’m here to talk to my mom.”

“I assure you,” started Thomas, “you’re mother’s not here.” He felt the sharp pain of Swan scraping her claws against his calf. “Hey!” He looked down at the thoroughly put out cat, glaring up at him with flashing eyes.

The stranger didn’t seem deterred. “She has to be here.”

Firmly, Thomas said, “You’re mistaken. No women live here. Marvin-” he nodded upstairs to where the second apartment was, “is very gay, and I haven’t had a woman over here since my wife died years ago. So you can--”

“You’re my step-father,” interrupted Henry, a desperate tinge in his voice. “My mom is, was, your wife.”

The blood drained from Thomas’s face. In the distance, he heard the sound of a cat’s mew.

“That’s not possible. Anna didn’t have any-”

“She had me when she was very young,” continued Henry. “Before she knew you.”

Thomas stared at Henry. “She had to have been--”

“She was seventeen.”

Thomas quickly did the math. The stranger would have to be younger than he looked, but Thomas had never been a good judge of age.

“She gave me up for adoption, because she wanted me to have a good life, a chance at happiness and a family,” Henry said. “And I have a family. The best one in the world. That’s why I’m here.”

Thomas couldn’t quite follow the man’s logic, but clearly this was emotional for him, so reason could scarcely be applied. Plus, given how shocked he was himself, Thomas couldn’t guarantee that he had faithfully understood or heard everything the younger man was saying. “So you’re Anna’s son.” It was the only thing he could manage.

Henry nodded. “Which makes you my step-father.”

Thomas swallowed. Despite the fact that he was sure that Anna would have told him if she had had a son as a teenager, he could see the family resemblance. Henry stood the way Anna had. Even Henry’s daughter reminded Thomas of his late wife. He couldn’t deny it. Henry had to be Anna’s son. She had had a secret that she had kept from him for years. The realization was like being impaled on a sword. Straight through him. “Come in,” he said softly, stepping aside to allow Henry and Lucy inside.

No sooner had Henry stepped his foot over the threshold did Swan begin purring, rubbing up against his legs. Henry looked down at the cat, a slightly amused expression on his face. “Didn’t realize you were a cat person,” Henry said, practically chuckling.

Blinking with bemusement, Thomas said, “Is there something wrong with that?” He wasn’t so sure how Henry could have decided that he was a dog person or a cat person based off of the five minutes they had been talking.

“No,” said Henry. “Just surprised.”

“I love cats,” said Lucy, kneeling down to pet Swan.

The white cat leaned into each stroke the girl gave, purring loudly.

“How long have you had the cat?” asked Henry conversationally.

“Um…” Thomas scratched his earlobe.

“Ten years!” interjected Lucy, scooping up Swan who rubbed her head against the little girl’s face.

“God no,” said Thomas. “More like a few months.” He wasn’t sure just how long it had been. It felt like he had always had Swan and the kittens with him, but he knew based on just how old the kittens were that they couldn’t be more than six months old. The kittens had been so tiny in the shelter. Though they had been old enough to be adopted separately from their mother, they had refused to be separated, from themselves and from their mother. The shelter had told Thomas that either the mother cat would sneak into the kitten room or the staff would find the kittens in her cage. Every time they were taken away from each other, the shelter would be filled with their cries and yowls.

Thomas hadn’t gone to the shelter intending to adopt three cats. He had only been looking for one to keep him company in his lonely home, but as soon as he had met Swan and seen how she was with her kittens, he hadn’t had any doubts that these cats belonged with him.

It only could have been a couple of months ago. It had to be.

Motioning for the two to follow him into the kitchen, Thomas said, “I was about to make coffee. I… I have some orange juice, if you like.” He glanced over at Lucy. His step-granddaughter. He felt way too young to be a grandfather, but he supposed if Anna had had Henry when she was so young, and then Henry had gone and had Lucy at about the same age… It all seemed plausible, but it made his mind hurt.

“We’ve had breakfast,” said the girl, grinning with big brown eyes as she swayed back and forth, rocking the purring cat.

“Coffee for me then,” said Thomas, putting a packet in the coffee maker and placing a mug underneath the spout.

“Black?” asked Henry.

“No.” Why was this man trying to guess how he liked his coffee? Perhaps Henry was a barista. He seemed like the sort who could easily fit in at a Starbucks.

“Irish?”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. Talking about drinking in front of children hardly seemed appropriate, but perhaps Henry thought he was being funny. Anna had told some pretty bad jokes in the past and her sense of humor had left several things to be desired, but Thomas had always found that extremely adorable. “Because of my accent?”

“Are you from there?” asked Henry.

“No, I just started talking like this because it makes me a hit with the ladies.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course I am.” He went over to the fridge and took out a carton of cream. “Haven’t been back in years… not since I met Anna… your mother.” He coughed a little as he spoke. It sounded so strange to hear himself actually say it. Anna was someone’s mother. Thomas caught sight of a look exchanged between father and daughter. Instead of saying anything, he poured the cream into his coffee and picked up a packet of sweetener. “We always talked about going and visiting but we didn’t have the time.”

Swan leapt out of Lucy’s arms and padded over to Thomas. She rubbed herself against his leg. Absentmindedly, Thomas bent down to stroke Swan. He glanced over in the direction of the food bowls. The kittens had completely emptied theirs and left, probably to play in the bedroom.

“You said she died,” said Henry softly. “Do you mind… how did it happen?”

Thomas sighed. As distressing as it was to even think about, Henry had a right to know what happened to his birth mother. Thomas just wished he wasn’t the one who had to tell him this. “There was an accident. We were driving in a storm, crossing a bridge. Car hydroplaned, and we went over. I made it. She didn’t.” He could still remember the feeling of the icy water coming in as he frantically tried to escape, then surfacing and realizing he was alone.

“I’m so sorry.”

Shaking his head, Thomas said, “Don’t be. I was the one driving the car.”

Before Henry could say anything in response, Lucy interjected, “Is that how you lost your hand?”

Thomas glanced down at his prosthetic. “Kind of. Got a cut from escaping. The water wasn’t very clean. I didn’t take care of it…” He hadn’t been able to do anything in the days after Anna had died. His whole world had come undone. “Landed me in the hospital.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Take care of yourself, Lily.”

With a small huff of annoyance, “It’s Lucy.”

“Right.”

Suddenly, Henry spoke. “Did you see her body?”

Thomas froze, earning a nip from Swan who did not approve of him stopping stroking her. “I…” He struggled to recall just what had happened. Those days were a complete blur. He remembered the accident. The pain from the infection and losing his hand. He remembered feeling completely hollow and gone. There had been a funeral, he knew. He just couldn’t remember that. Slowly it came back to him. “They weren’t able to retrieve it.”

Henry’s lips twitched, as if he were about to smile. “So, she could be alive.”

Standing up, Thomas firmly said, “No.” He held out his hand. “Don’t go down that road. It’s not healthy. Trust me. It only leads to unhappiness and darkness.” Henry had to be going through a very abbreviated process of grieving. This had to be denial. “She’s dead. Been dead for years. There’s no disputing that. I will show you her grave.” He visited almost weekly.

Unphased by Thomas’s certainty, Henry said, “I believe she’s alive. I believe she’s here in Fairyland.”

“She is buried in Fairyland’s cemetery I can--”

“Let me tell you a story,” said Henry.

The sheer strangeness of Henry’s request made Thomas close his mouth. Swan jumped up onto the counter and bumped her face against Thomas’s side.

“Once upon a time, the Evil Queen cast a curse, a dark curse. She cast it to take away Snow White and Prince Charming’s happy ending.”

Thomas looked from Henry to his daughter and back again to the man. “It’s been awhile since I read Grimm, but didn’t the Evil Queen die at Snow White and the prince’s wedding because Snow White was vindictive and made her dance in burning hot metal shoes?” He was fairly sure that was how the story actually ended, and even in the Disney version, the witch still died. “Because she was a vindictive bi--” he glanced over at Lucy who had taken a seat at his table, “girl who had some issues to work out.” Policing his language wasn’t something he really was ever called upon to do.

Henry shook his head. “No. That isn’t what happened. The Evil Queen came to their wedding to announce that she would cast a curse that would take them all away from the Enchanted Forest. And she did. She cast the curse, and it brought everyone to Storybrooke, Maine.”

“Storybrooke?”

“You live in Fairyland.”

The man had a point.

“In Storybrooke, Snow White became a teacher named Mary Margaret, and Prince Charming was at the hospital, in a coma. Mary Margaret would volunteer at the hospital, and she would see him, her True Love, not knowing who he was.”

The story Henry was telling was certainly strange, but Thomas could follow it. “Because of the curse?”

“You’ve got it,” said Henry with a small smile. “The curse made everyone forget who they were. They were living fake, cursed lives. They had memories of childhoods they never had, degrees from schools they never attended. They were all trapped in Storybrooke, where time passed, but they didn’t age. Nothing changed. Not until the Savior came.”

Thomas glanced over at the Crucifix on the wall.

“The Savior is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. Before the Curse was cast, they put her in a magical wardrobe that brought her to this world. She was the one who was destined to break the Curse, bring back all the happy endings, and save all the realms from destruction. Her name is _Emma_. Emma Jones.”

Raising an eyebrow, “The Savior’s mother is _Mary_ Margaret? This… story… It’s a little bit heavy handed, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t choose the names,” said Henry. “But as an Author, I will admit, there isn’t much subtly here.”

“I take it you write Fantasy.” The kinds of books with dragons and wizards on the covers, with maidens in skimpy dresses and elves that shot arrows and told prophecies. Books Thomas had never bothered with himself.

“Biography, actually. Historical accounts.” He went over to pick up the papers that Lucy had left on the table. “Our history.” He flipped through the pages before finally turning the homemade book around to show Thomas. “Look.”

Thomas barely had time to register that it was a drawing of him and Anna dancing, Anna in a bright red gown and he wearing a brown jacket that did not look like anything he had ever worn, before other scenes flashed before his eyes. Anna in a white dress, curtseying to him, a grown a flowers in her hair. Her dress fanning out as she twirled around, while other people danced around them in costumes from a time long past. Another white dress, this one covered in lace. A wedding dress. They were dancing again. He dipped Anna, smiling at her.

The hazy scenes were gone just as quickly as they had come, leaving Thomas with a dizziness that made him need to grip the counter, his knuckles turning white.

“You remember!” said Lucy, getting up from the table. She walked over to him and Henry.

Slowly, Thomas shook his head, trying to rid himself of the feeling of whiplash. “No. But… I felt…” The scenes had felt so real, each one bringing emotions and sensations with it. The fabric of Anna’s dresses against his hand. The laughter and music. “Something.”

Henry took a few steps closer to Thomas. “Something real. This --” he gestured around the house, “--this isn’t real. What’s here, in this book, is real. You have to believe it.”

How could it be possible that what Henry was saying was at all true? Thomas remembered growing up. He remembered going to school and then college. He remembered seeing Anna on the bus, working up the nerve to speak to her after months of taking the same bus to and from work. He remembered the numbing dullness of hours at the bank. He remembered everything. There was no way that had all been a lie.

“You could have photoshopped that,” said Thomas, trying to sound completely sure. “You found a picture of Anna and me, put it through one of those filters or whatever you do to make it look painted.” Just because he didn’t know how to do it, that didn’t mean that Henry or Lucy didn’t know how to edit a photo.

“They’re real,” insisted Lucy. “You have to believe that.”

With a nervous laugh, Thomas said, “I can’t believe it.”

“Your wife…” started Henry, a desperate expression on his face, “she liked her hot chocolate with cinnamon. The curse didn’t take that away.”

Thomas opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“You’ve got a tattoo on your arm. It has a wavy dagger through a heart, symbolizing a comrade lost at sea, and it says, ‘Milah.’”

It felt as though his insides had turned to water. “How do you know that?” Even in the heat of summer, Thomas wore long sleeves to make sure that no one saw the tattoo he had been stupid enough to get one drunken night in college. Only his frat brothers and Anna knew about it.

“Because you’re my step-father,” said Henry. “We lived together for years. I’ve seen it, and you told me what it means. I know you got it to honor my grandmother. You watched her die and Rumplestiltskin cut off your hand, and you became Captain Hook!”

This was all too much. “You’re mad. Completely mad.” But Thomas no longer could say he believed in the words he was saying. Something was ringing true to him in what Henry was saying. The flashes the picture had given him, as he tried to recall them, he could distinctly see a hook instead of his right hand. “Captain Hook… Rumplestiltskin… They’re not real people.”

“That’s what the curse wants you to think,” said Lucy.

“Why?”

“As long as you don’t remember, the curse can’t be broken.” Henry’s face was set and serious. “If you don’t remember that you’re Captain Hook, and Anna is really Emma the Savior, then the curse stays in place. No one has their happy endings. You need to find Emma and save her. She’s your True Love, so you will always find her. Trust me.”

Anna could be alive. He might not be who he thought he was. None of this could be real. But Anna or Emma or whatever her name was could actually still be alive. She never died. That was all in his head. She was somewhere here. He just needed to look.

“I think I believe you,” said Thomas softly. He reached out to pet Swan who was purring loudly. “I want to believe.”

Henry and Lucy beamed, twin smiles that painfully reminded Thomas of how Anna used to grin when she was so completely and utterly happy.

“We’ve got a lot to tell you, then,” said Lucy.

“I think I know where to begin,” said Henry, handing the book to Thomas. “Once upon a time, there was a man called Killian Jones, and he was a man of honor or at least, that was what he wanted to be…”


	2. Part Two: Leave It To Chewie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even after Henry's explanation, Thomas struggles to wrap his head around the possibility that he could be a character from a book. But finally, it's time to name this operation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for not being able to update this as quickly as I would have liked, but I wasn't able to finish the chapter before I moved house, which set me back even farther in my timeline. I hope no one has given up on me!
> 
> A lot of this chapter is talk heavy, but the action does begin to happen in this chapter. I promise, it's worth the explanations and confused!Killian. 
> 
> Additionally, you might notice that I'm adding a few character tags (and will continue to do so). I generally only tag characters if they're going to appear in multiple chapters, and mapping out the story and getting a clearer idea of where the chapter divides fall allows me to know who I should wind up tagging.

“So let me see if I have this straight,” said Thomas. It was nearly three hours and four cups of coffee later. Swan had remained in his lap almost the whole time, occasionally mewing and pawing at him, but largely just watching and objecting to being put on the floor every time Thomas got up to make another cup of coffee. 

After the first half hour, Henry had accepted the offer of coffee, though he had only taken a few sips in between long-winded and often extremely confusing explanations, which only prompted more questions from Thomas and even longer answers that were never entirely satisfying. Henry’s neglected mug of room temperature coffee rested on the kitchen table, beside the remnants of the orange that Lucy had eaten after over an hour of helping tell the story.

“The daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming broke the curse cast by the Evil Queen in Storybrooke, because you found her… your mother, and brought her there and convinced her to believe in…” he really didn’t know how to describe it. Part of him thought that this was completely ridiculous and impossible, but there was something in Henry’s conviction that made him want to believe, and an even odder lingering feeling in his gut that there was something undeniably true in the story Henry had spun. “... all of this. Anna - Emma,” corrected Thomas, “broke the curse and saved you from the same sleeping curse the Evil Queen put Snow White under with True Love’s kiss. You’re the son of Emma and the son of Rumplestiltskin and the Milah from my tattoo, who was my first love…” He had needed to sketch out the family tree Henry had described on a piece of paper, but it was really a jumbled mess that looked more like a wreath than a tree. “And you were adopted by the Evil Queen, who’s name is Regina. Her half-sister’s the Wicked Witch, and she tricked Robin Hood, got pregnant, but Regina was Robin’s soul mate… but he was killed by Hades? Despite being a Greek god, he’s someone in this mess too.”

Henry nodded as Thomas spoke.

“And I’m Captain Hook, but my name is Killian Jones and not James Hook like it is in the play--” He had seen the play growing up, though if what Henry was telling him was true, he only believed that he had seen the play. “Emma and I met in the Enchanted Forest because somehow she and Snow White wound up there. We climbed a beanstalk to help get a magic bean to get everyone to Storybrooke. In Storybrooke you were kidnapped and taken to Neverland by your father’s ex-fiancee and her lover. I had gotten a magic bean and I was going to leave, but then I came back and I took your mothers and grandparents to Neverland, where I had spent a few centuries living, as had your father.”

“Don’t forget that Peter Pan was there!” interjected Lucy.

Thomas glanced down at the family knot. “And he was your great-grandfather.” 

“Malcolm was, but then Malcolm went to Neverland, de-aged himself and called himself Peter Pan,” explained Henry. 

“Right…” Thomas looked down at the picture of the family sitting all on one side of the table as if they were in The Last Supper. Everyone a stranger to him but Anna. “Sorry, but even after all those curses and back stabbings and… everything, everyone still got together at Granny’s once a week as a family?” In terms of difficult things to believe, this was hardly the most difficult to accept, but it was high on the list of things that he was having trouble with believing. 

“There was the time when Belle gave everyone food poisoning and you might have sent a few vaguely threatening texts from the ‘head,’” said Henry with a small smile.

Thomas blinked. “The head?”

“Bathroom on a ship, but you would refer to pretty much any bathroom as the head.” The young man shrugged his shoulders with an amused grin. “But yeah. Surprisingly, we came to accept everyone as having changed for the better and found that our bonds as a family were stronger than anything thrown at us. You never did get along well with my grandfather on my dad’s side, and I don’t think he ever really liked you, but you both considered each other family to a certain extent.” 

The way that the younger man spoke, it seemed that Henry had so many memories crowding his mind that he wanted to share, but the urgency of the situation prevented him from going into great detail. Thomas found himself yearning to know just what memories colored the words Henry chose, how he sighed and paused, which ones lit up his eyes with excitement or brought the pain that had stretched his voice thin in many places. These small glimpses were not enough to know the forgotten lifetimes that Henry was trying to explain to him. Lifetimes that Thomas himself believed he could feel the weight of.

Or perhaps these were all imagined stories Henry had invented himself and told his daughter. Perhaps Henry and Lucy had come to believe these stories he told about his birth parents’ families, but that didn’t mean that any of this was real. If this were all in Henry’s and Lucy’s heads, and Thomas accepted it as true, then son and daughter were mental, and Thomas was mental for believing them.

That was the logical explanation, but Thomas’s logic couldn’t explain away the odd sensation of familiarity that followed every one of Henry’s words. He couldn’t deny that something about Henry’s story spoke to some part deep inside of him that was telling Thomas to believe. This was right. 

“It’s quite a lot you’re asking me to swallow, Henry,” said Thomas gently. “A lot of extremely improbable stuff. Impossible even.” 

“I know it seems like that,” said Henry, “but it’s real.”

Thomas shook his head and continued, “Fairy tales aren’t real, though. And you’re saying not just fairy tales are true. Stories written by real people like J.M. Barrie and Hans Christian Andersen actually happened, but different than these authors wrote them.”

“They were Authors,” said Lucy. “With a capital A. Like my dad is.” She proudly looked over at her father. “So were the Brothers Grimm. Scheherazade too.”

“Even Walt Disney was one,” added Henry. “He was the predecessor to my predecessor. Sort of like my Grand-Author.” 

Running his fingers through his dark hair, Thomas sighed, “So how do you explain the fact that all these stories are old? Some are thousands of years old. But you’re saying Snow White just happened some fifty-ish years ago.”

Pausing for a moment, Henry seemed caught, as if he had overlooked a critical part of the narrative he had been creating. “In addition to recording the stories of their time, many Authors have been gifted with the ability to see the future. It comes in flashes, and it’s not always accurate, since there are always possibilities when it comes to the future. Authors rarely get clear ideas or see the whole story before it happens. So, you wind up with a version of the story out here that isn’t always right about someone who hasn’t even been born yet. That story gets told, and people change it as they’re telling it. You know, like the game telephone.”

Compared to some of the explanations Henry had provided to his questions, this was extremely straightforward. “Okay, I’ll allow that that does seem completely plausible given the… based off of what you’ve told me about this… parallel universe--”

“It’s not a parallel universe,” interrupted Henry. “It intersects with this one. That’s why we are all here. That’s why everyone in Fairyland is here.”

“Poor choice of words, but how else am I to describe it?”

“Reality,” suggested Lucy.

Urgently, Henry nodded. “It’s what’s real. None of this is real. A curse made it all.”

Thomas glanced around the room. The home filled with items he and Anna had accumulated together, each item with a memory attached to it, seemed as real to him as anything ever could. The memories he had acquired over half a lifetime were ones that he trusted to tell him the truth about who he was and what he had overcome to get here to this moment. He could remember learning in introductory psychology in college that it was possible to create false memories. He let out a laugh as he realized that that memory itself could be a fake memory implanted by magic he didn’t understand instead of some experimenter with photoshop.

Leaning forward, Henry asked, “What?”

“This is all so… surreal,” Thomas said. “A part of me knows that this is absolutely mad, but…” He trailed off, his smile fading.

“A part of you knows that it’s real,” Henry said. “You want to believe.”

“It’s just so hard to accept.” 

Swan started licking his hand at that moment. Surprised, Thomas pulled away from her rough tongue and wiped the wetness off onto his robe.

“I know I’m asking you to believe in a lot, and that it’s confusing and seems far-fetched,” Henry said. “You’re not the first person I’ve had to convince about this. Actually, this isn’t even the first time I’ve had to explain this to you?”

“It’s not?”

Henry shook his head. “The Author before me wrote an alternate universe for all of us, to give the villains happy endings, only really he just turned the villains into heroes. Everyone except me and my mom weren’t able to remember anything. But, I was able to convince you then. I will convince you now.” A confident smirk crept up on his lips.

As if he were in an elevator, Thomas felt an unsteady upward jerk, forcing his heart up. Dizzy recognition filled him. That expression. He had seen it before. Many times before. He could see the man in front of him before he had become a man, memory overlaying the present. The gears in his mind that had been stubbornly still suddenly inched forward, teeth knitting together. 

No quicker had the sensation come over Thomas did it vanish, leaving him feeling as though he had just run all the way to the city hall and back.

“The Wookie,” managed Thomas. His voice was practically a rasp.

Henry’s eyes lit up, and Lucy, seeing her father’s reaction, got to her feet. 

Still in his lap, Swan started to purr. 

“I remembered… something…” Thomas shook his head. “I’m not sure what… but…” He looked intently at Henry. “I know I knew you. I know you.”

Beaming, “Yes. You do,” Henry said.

Thomas pointed at Lucy. “And I don’t know you, but something tells me that I should get to know you.”

“You should,” said Lucy. “I’m your granddaughter.” She gave a smirk that mirrored her father’s. 

Awkwardly, Thomas laughed and scratched the back of his ear. “That’s really going to take some getting used to.” 

Henry said softly, “You will,” before pushing the storybook closer to Thomas, and adding, “You really don’t know any of these people?” The book was still open to the dinner scene at Granny’s.

Shaking his head, Thomas repeated, “Other than my wife and you, no. I’ve never seen them before in my life… this life.” Henry’s and Lucy’s disappointed expressions made Thomas wish that he was able to give a different answer.

“That’s to be expected, I guess,” said Henry with a sigh. “Storybrooke was a town, and I didn’t know everyone.”

“And Fairyland is a city,” said Thomas. “Not a big one, but a city.” Enough hours away from Seattle or any other big city to be considered out of the way and essentially in the middle of a lot of nothing, as if everyone within a certain radius had been drawn in towards the center, leaving miles around the city desolate. There was really no reason to ever leave the city and travel the hours it took to get anywhere else. It had everything the residents could ever need and then some. There were plenty of businesses that seemed to never get customers, but somehow managed to scrape through. He hadn’t ever given any thought to their presence in the city, but after Henry had described Storybrooke the eerie familiarity had lent him an explanation. None of the businesses were real businesses. Anything bought or sold here was in essence irrelevant. The curse kept everything in stasis. 

Henry shrugged his shoulders. “It would have been nice if you had recognized someone. It would have been a place to start. But that would only get us so far. Everyone here is cursed.”

“Not everyone,” piped up Lucy. “Not whoever cast the curse! We haven’t figured out who did that yet.” She paused. “Remember, Grandma remembered who she was, since she cast the curse, and she was mayor.” She was grinning broadly with pride for having thought of this. “Who’s mayor of Fairyland?”

Before Thomas could answer, Henry said, “Not necessarily, when Grandma and Grandpa cast the curse, they were cursed too, and when you,” he nodded at Thomas, “cast one, you got cursed too. But both times a memory component was added by someone else, so the person who added that component remembered, even if they didn’t create the curse.”

The name of the mayor faded on Thomas’s lips. “I cast a curse? But I thought I was just a pirate.”

“You weren’t just a pirate,” said Henry. “You were also a Dark One. Briefly. Like for a week, but you didn’t remember. Anyway, that’s how you wound up dead and Zeus brought you back.”

As Thomas leaned back in his seat feeling once again overwhelmed by all the information Henry was dumping on him, Swan placed a paw on his chest and rested her white head upon it purring. Thomas rubbed the velvety fur on the bridge of her nose that was more fuzz than anything else. “It seems I have led quite the life. Wish I could remember it.”

“If we find my mom, you will,” said Henry firmly. “I know it.” 

Swan sat upright and started kneading Thomas’s chest, causing the robe to open up.

Thomas let out a surprised cry of pain and picked Swan up, only to find her claws were tangled up in the red robe. As he unhooked them, he said, “And the mayor might be a good place to start? Our mayor’s name is Clive Wilder. I don’t reckon that’s any help though.” He set Swan down on the ground. Instead of slinking away, the white cat placed herself decidedly between the legs of Henry’s chair. 

“Is he in the book?” asked Lucy.

Thinking back to the illustrations Henry and Lucy had shown him from the book as they had been explaining their story to him, Thomas shook his head. “He wasn’t in any of the illustrations you showed me,” said Thomas. 

Lucy let out a frustrated sigh. 

Henry let his fingertip go around the rim of his abandoned coffee mug. “Think you could take us to him?” 

“I mean… it’s Saturday afternoon. I don’t think he’d be in his office,” mused Thomas. “But we could try to look him up. I’m willing to hazard a guess that his number is unlisted, though.”

“What about his address? Could look that up.”

Thomas wasn’t so sure that it would be likely to be listed either, but he pulled out his phone and with a few clicks brought up the town whitepages. W-I-L-D-E-R he typed. “So there are two Wilders in Fairyland, but only one ‘C. Wilder.’” He looked up from his phone. “57 Crescent Court.” He gave a small shudder at the alliteration. Getting to his feet, Thomas said, “I’m going to get dressed.” And take a much needed bathroom break. “I will be back in ten minutes.”

He was back in seven. He was quick to shed his robe and pulled a shirt and pants out without paying much mind to it until Marie decided to pounce on the sleeve. “Not a toy,” he said, tugging the flannel out of her mouth. He picked up a nearby catnip mouse. “This is a toy.” He threw it in the direction of Berlioz who was lying on his back in a patch of sunlight. Marie pranced off after the toy, allowing Thomas to finish getting dressed and emerge from the bedroom.

No sooner had Henry turned to face him did an amused smile crept up on his face.

“What?” asked Thomas, pulling on his shoes.

“Oh, nothing,” laughed Henry, shaking his head while his daughter and Thomas looked equally confused at him. “Just I don’t think Killian Jones would be caught dead in flannel and jeans. Especially not something so… colorful.”

Thomas glanced down at his green and blue flannel top. It was hardly vibrant or particularly loud. There was a thin yellow stripe in the flannel pattern, but that was a muted shade. 

“Flannel was more what my mom would wear. You normally wear mostly black or dark colors,” explained Henry. “And leather. Lots of leather.”

“I don’t think I own anything leather other than a few belts. And I detest black.” The suits that he wore to work were always grey, navy or somewhere in between. The only black suit he had ever worn had been to Anna’s funeral, and that was something he hoped to never wear again. 

“That’s the curse,” said Henry, still smiling. “Come on, let’s go.” 

Lucy gave Swan a final pat and then straightened up. She tucked the makeshift storybook under her arm and hurried to the door. Henry quickly followed. Thomas took up the rear. As he paused to shut the door, a blur of white shot through his legs and scampered onto the porch. Swan made it all the way down to the mailbox by the time Thomas caught up with her.

“Bad kitty,” scolded Thomas, as he wrapped his arms around her middle. 

Swan fought against his hold, giving a low disapproving growl. 

“Indoor cats do not belong outdoors. You know what I promised the shelter. You’re an indoor cat now.” He walked up the path and climbed up the stairs. When he reached the hallway, he set her down on the rug. “Please behave.” He had to move fast to beat her to the door, shutting it firmly behind him. From the other side of the door, Thomas could hear Swan clawing at the wood, trying to scratch her way outdoors. “It’s for your own good.” 

A muffled plaintive meow came through, that was heart melting enough to make Thomas wish that he had attempted to train her to walk on a leash. Too late for that now. “I’m sorry.” He walked away from the door, not looking back until he couldn’t hear the scratching anymore.

From above, Thomas heard, “Cat trouble?”

Thomas looked up to Marvin on the duplex’s balcony, small plate and sandwich in hand. Lunchtime, which for Marvin Roquefort meant something with avocado and cheese that was supposed to be healthy. “Nothing I can’t…” Thomas held up his fake hand, “handle.”

Marvin stroked his black beard and looked perplexed as if wondering if it was polite to be amused by Thomas’s joke, while Henry let out a laugh.

Thomas sighed dramatically and said, “It’s okay to laugh, Marvin. I give you permission.” How many times would they have to go through this? How many times had they actually gone through this? Based off of what Henry had told him, he and Marvin could have had this conversation thousands of times, and not been aware of that fact.

Instead of laughing, Marvin said, “Who are your friends?”

Henry stepped forward and said, “I’m Henry. This is my daughter, Lucy.”

Thomas added, “They’re family. Visiting.”

Squinting down at the three of them, Marvin said disbelievingly, “You’ve got American relatives?” 

After years of being neighbors and visiting one another’s place, Thomas knew that Marvin had a fairly decent understanding of his family tree from the pictures on the wall and conversations that they had had. “Anna’s relatives. So family, with American accents.”

The surprise was evident on the older man’s face. “Wasn’t aware she had any family.” He picked up his sandwich and took a bite out of it. “Enjoy the family reunion.” He turned around and vanished out of sight into his second floor apartment. 

Thomas walked up to Henry and the unfamiliar car that Lucy had already sat down inside. The ten-year-old girl made it obvious that they were going to take Henry’s car. “Who was that? When he’s not Marvin,” he whispered as he opened the car door.

“Blackbeard,” said Henry, still grinning from ear to ear. “But with a haircut and better grooming habits.”

Thomas sat down in the passenger seat and tugged the seat belt into position. “So he’s Edward Teach?” He had heard about the legendary pirate before who had terrorized the West Indies. It was hard to imagine the man who went to Quaker meetings weekly running around with a sword and hemp burning under a much longer beard. It was hard to even picture Marvin with any beard larger than his very closely shorn balbo. 

Henry started up the engine. “Not entirely sure on that one. Being able to travel through realms, he could be, but to be honest, I think that there are just two pirates with the same name. One in this world, one in your world.” He pulled away from the curb.

“Like how I have two brothers named Liam?” He raised an eyebrow, still finding that fact both bizarrely amusing and horrible. 

With a shake of his head, “Different matter entirely. But you are still stuck on that fact.”

“Yes. Because it’s morbid and demented. Worse than George Foreman.” Suddenly naming several children after one’s self seemed entirely acceptable compared to the idea of naming a child after an older dead sibling. There was something so arcane about it that it made Thomas not know whether he should wince or laugh. 

“And not very original,” added Lucy from the back.

“Luce,” chided Henry, before turning to Thomas. “Okay, Killian.”

Thomas looked at Henry. Though he knew that Killian was his name, he felt no connection to it, no ownership whatsoever. 

“You’re going to have to direct me where to go, and Operation Chewbacca can begin.”

“Operation Chewbacca?”

Taking his eyes off the road for a moment, Henry grinned. “Every adventure needs a name.”

Honestly, Thomas couldn’t say that he was a big Star Wars fan, but suddenly the franchise was growing on him. “It’s a good name,” allowed Thomas. Better than Operation Mog. 

“Glad you think so. Now, do I turn left or right up here at the stop sign or do I keep on going straight?”

****

Without traffic, it only took twenty minutes to get to Crescent Court, or rather the street beside Crescent Court. As Henry parked on the street next to the one where the mayor lived, Thomas gave Henry a quizzical look.

“It’s important to take precautions,” said Henry. “We don’t know who or what we’re dealing with.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s not a what,” said Thomas. He hadn’t ever met the mayor in person, but he was fairly sure that Clive Wilder was as human as any of them were. 

Ignoring what Thomas had said, Lucy leaned forward between the front seat and the passenger seat. “Did you learn that from Grandma?” Her brown eyes were wide and hopeful.

Henry nodded and unbuckled his seatbelt. “Yeah. That and a love of comic books, spy stuff and action movies.” Catching sight of Thomas’s confused look, he added, “My mom was a bail bondsperson. And before that she was a thief. That’s how she wound up in jail.”

“You can’t be a bail bondsperson with a record,” said Thomas incredulously, though of all the things to question about what Henry had told him over the past few hours, this was extraordinarily trivial. 

“Sealed juvenile record? Curse magic?” suggested Henry. He opened the car door and stepped out. Thomas followed suit, and Lucy wasn’t too long behind them bouncing out of the car, the book still tucked under her arm.

Eagerly, Lucy said, “So what’s the plan?” She bounced up onto the balls of her feet, glancing from father to grandfather expectantly. 

A small smile crept up on Henry’s face. “Remember how Killian thought you were a Girl Scout?”

“I can track, but I’m not a scout,” said Lucy.

“No, not a scout, scout. Girl Scouts are kinda like a club for girls, and they sell cookies. Everybody loves their cookies,” explained Henry. “They were uniforms and go camping--”

“Earn badges,” added Thomas. “Climb mountains.” The more he heard from Lucy, the clearer it became to him that she knew very little about this world.

“We’re going to go up to Clive Wilder’s door, ring it, ask if he wants to order Girl Scout Cookies,” said Henry. “If it’s clear that he knows something’s up then… well… just follow my lead.”

Thomas had to admit, it wasn’t a bad plan. If he had assumed that was what was going on when Henry and Lucy showed up at his doorstep a few hours before, then it was possible that Clive would make the same assumption. “Let’s do it.”

The houses on Crescent Court were much nicer than the ones in Thomas’s neighborhood. Elegant and well kept, painted with whites, blues and greens, the houses stood proudly, sprawling out. They mimicked older style houses, though Thomas knew now they couldn’t be as old as they looked. Manicured lawns with gardens that had to be cared for professionally separated the houses from the sidewalk lined with deciduous trees in full summer green. Cars glinted in the driveways, bright and new. It looked more like the suburbs than a city neighborhood.

“This is the sort of place I grew up in,” murmured Henry as they walked past the third hedge wall in a row. He stopped suddenly, his face growing pale. He pointed to a blue house a few houses down. “Tell me that’s not 57?” 

Thomas peered farther down. “I think so. This one’s 53, so next must be 55, and then--”

“You don’t recognize it? It doesn’t bring back anything?”

Lucy joined Thomas in staring intently at the blue Queen Anne. Thomas shook his head, frowning. “No. By your tone I take it I should.”

“Yes,” said Henry, almost laughing in frustration. “That’s your house! We picked it out together.”

Thomas’s forehead wrinkled as he stared more intently at it. “Really? I don’t recognize it at all. Never been one for Victorians.” He tried to imagine living in that house, sitting in a rocker on the wrap around porch or looking out of the wide windows. Not even the faintest spark struck him. “Sorry.”

With a sigh Henry brushed it aside. “Well, let’s see who lives in it now.” Swiftly, Henry closed the distance between them and the blue house. 

As they walked up the brick path and started on the steep stairs, Thomas found himself looking upwards at the house, willing himself to remember something, even the smallest of flashes. Without paying attention to where he was stepping, Thomas found himself falling forward onto the stairs. Thomas put his hand out to brace himself. The impact stung, but he gave an embarrassed laugh. “You’d think I’d be better at climbing these stairs,” he murmured to Henry and Lucy. He pushed himself up and climbed the rest of the way up the stairs onto the porch so he was standing beside them in front of the door. 

“Actually, you would get tripped up on that step even when you remembered the house,” said Henry nonchalantly. Turning to his daughter, he asked, “Are you ready.”

Lucy nodded firmly, face set in a determined expression.

Firmly, Henry knocked on the door.

After a moment, the door swung open, revealing a blonde teenage girl wearing a purple shirt that read ‘Fairyland State.’ She looked at them, clearly annoyed to be interrupted. “Yeah?” she asked. “Can I help you?”

If Henry was disappointed, it didn’t show on his face. Instead, he smiled at the girl. “We’d like to talk to an adult. Is your father available?” he said smoothly.

“I am an adult,” said the girl, her voice dripping with irritation. “But sure.” She stepped back and shouted, “DAD!” loud enough so that a dog started barking somewhere inside the house.

Footsteps came from inside.

“Someone wants to see you,” she said to someone out of sight.

“Really?” A man with grey hair stepped forward. Blue eyes surveyed the three standing on his front step. He gave a small polite smile. “I’m sorry. But you are--”

“I’m Lucy Mills.” She stepped forward smiling. “I’m a Girl Scout. I’m selling cookies.”

The teenage girl smirked and vanished inside the house.

“My daughter Riley was a Girl Scout back in the day,” the mayor said. “It’s good to the Brownies are still thriving.”

Oblivious to what the mayor was referring to, “We’re not selling brownies, we’re selling cookies!” said Lucy brightly.

Clive Wilder blinked in confusion at the girl. “I am aware.”

“Lucy’s got a sense of humor,” said Henry quickly.

Thomas offered a nod of confirmation. He was fairly sure that Brownies were younger than Lucy, but perhaps the mayor was an even worse judge of age than he was. 

“But Lucy’s having a _whale_ of a time in Girl Scouts,” continued Henry.

The emphasis Henry placed on the word ‘whale’ made Thomas frown slightly, wishing he understood the implication.

Jovially, Clive said, “That’s good to hear. The Girl Scouts are always doing excellent community service in this city. Say, how would you girls like to get a tour of City Hall?”

Lucy glanced up at Henry.

“We’ve got our meetings planned out for the next school year already! But thanks for the offer.” Henry’s ability to lie under pressure was uncanny. Certainly better than Thomas could ever hope to be.

“So, cookies?” said Lucy.

“Right, yes.” Clive nodded. “Do you have any Thin Mints.”

“Oh, we’ve got thin mints, thick mints, all kinds of mints!” chirped Lucy.

The mayor’s face was blank for a moment, but then suddenly he let out a laugh that sounded hollow. “There’s that sense of humor your father was talking about.” His grin lasted long after his laugh, as if painted on. It was exactly the sort of smile that Thomas would expect from a politician. “Put me down for a box then.”

Lucy beamed.

“We’ll be back with your order in a month’s time!” said Henry, starting down the stairs. “Have a good day, Doc- Mister Mayor.” He gave a wave, which Lucy echoed before prancing down the stairs and walkway. 

Thomas gave the porch one last sweeping look, frowning with desperation, before rejoining his comrades. As soon as they were out of earshot, Thomas whispered to Henry, “Do you think he cast the curse?”

Firmly, Henry shook his head. “No. There’s no way he did.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because,” Henry stopped to glance over his shoulder to make sure that they were now hidden by the hedges of the next two houses down from 57, before continuing on towards the car, “Frankenstein doesn’t do magic. He’s all about science.” 

Blue eyes widened. “Frankenstein’s real too? What about his monster?”

“All real, but I don’t think he’s brought anyone back to life recently. Really it didn’t work so well the last time.”

Thomas wanted to ask more questions about Frankenstein and his monster, but instead it was Henry who asked a question.

“Is that a ticket? Damnit.” Henry ran up to the car and pulled a yellow paper out from under the windshield wiper. 

From where Thomas was standing, it didn’t look like a ticket. “I think someone’s probably advertising a yard sale or bible study group.” He caught up to Henry, Lucy a couple strides behind him.

Henry unfolded the yellow piece of paper.

“See, look, just an ad for a performance at a jazz club,” said Thomas. “The Blue Village. Not a bad place if you like jazz. Not my cup of tea, though. I prefer--”

“Killian, we know you like sea shanties,” interjected Henry. “Look at the bottom.” 

Thomas glanced down to the bottom of the flyer underneath the big lettering and silhouettes of instruments one would associate with jazz. In elegant, flowing script, someone had written, _He can help_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think!  
> -Polarbearmorgan
> 
> P.S. Yes, the Spaceballs reference was 100% necessary.


	3. Part Three: East of The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry, Lucy, and Thomas take an unexpected detour when a family member makes an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering, Season Seven will have no impact on this story. None whatsoever. It was fully planned out at the start of the Summer, long before spoilers started to come out about the season, and the episodes that are currently airing now haven't influenced the course this story will take or really anything about it at all. So, if you are hoping to avoid Season Seven, this story will not force you to contend with anything that currently taking place on the show. This is a completely different kettle of fish! It's not a different storybook. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this latest installment (completely free from Season Seven influence).

The arching spikes of the letters written on the flyer stared back at Thomas. “‘He can help,’” he read out loud, as if saying it would some how clarify the whole matter. “Who is ‘he?’” 

Despite all of his previous long-winded explanations, for a moment all Henry could do was shake his head. Finally, the Author managed, “I don’t know.” He looked up at Thomas. “I don’t even recognize this handwriting. But, you know what this means, right?”

Thomas was still staring at the yellow paper. “Someone was watching us.”

“Someone remembers,” Henry said. “And they want us to see the Kings of the Highway preform tonight.”

Stepping between the two adults, Lucy said, “We’ll have to go and see ‘him’ then!” She walked towards the back of the car. “Come on,” she said, her hand on the car door. 

“Not so fast, kid,” Henry said grimly. “We don’t know if this is a friend or if it’s a trap… What if whoever cast the spell has been watching us and left us this message?”

As Henry spoke, Thomas nodded, though he hadn’t thought of all that himself. It still made sense to Thomas, given everything that he had learned since this morning. Someone wanted them at The Blue Village tonight, but didn’t want them to know who he or she was. It was as suspicious as the message was cryptic. 

Lucy’s hand fell to her side, but the determined frown still remained on her face. “And what if it’s someone who wants to help us, but can’t reveal that they remember? What if they have to lie low? What if they’re scared of whoever cast the Curse?”

Henry folded the paper back up. “We can’t count on that. I want to believe it. I want to think that it’s not a trap, but Lucy, we have to be careful. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here, or who might be on our side,” he said. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t go. We should. But, we need to be smart about it. Come up with a plan… just in case things go wrong.” He glanced over at Thomas. “Killian, can you look up this band… Kings of the Highway?”

Thomas pulled out his phone from his jeans pocket. “Sure.” He tapped the screen, quickly typing in the name. “There’s a web page.” He scrolled through it frowning at the brief description of the band’s history and style. The blurbs from reviews that had been written about their performances. None of it seemed particularly useful. “I don’t think it’ll be much help. There aren’t any pictures of them.” He handed the phone to Henry to see for himself. 

“Of course there aren’t,” sighed Henry. “That would be too easy.” He used his index finger to scroll. “At least it confirms what the ad says. They’re playing tonight at The Blue Village at eight. Don’t know who’s running the page, so can’t entirely trust it, but that’s promising.” He handed Thomas back his mobile. “Do you know who owns The Blue Village?”

“No,” said Thomas. “Like I said, I’ve never been there. I don’t like jazz. And I haven’t really gone out in years. Not since…” He stopped. “I guess I’ve never actually been out.” If Anna’s death was entirely the result of memories given to him by a curse along with all his past, then he had never been out in Fairyland. 

“Oh, you’ve been out,” said Henry. “Killian Jones went out… a lot. You liked taverns.”

“Liked,” emphasized Thomas. “I stopped going to bars in my mid twenties. Don’t think I’ve had more than a couple beers since… well… however long this curse has been.” 

“Knowing you, you probably drank the night before the curse came,” said Henry with a grin.  
“We’re wasting time,” interrupted Lucy with an exasperated sigh. She folded her arms across her chest. “Our family is in danger and you are just standing there looking at....” She paused, clearly struggling to find a way to explain a smart phone, “... those rectangular things.” 

“Lucy, don’t be rude. And they’re called phones,” said Henry. He started towards the car. Catching Thomas’s look of confusion, he offered, “She has a point, and we need to figure out what we’re going to do.” Henry swung open the car door and slid inside, Thomas quickly joining him.

“So we’ll go to the club tonight,” said Lucy. “But we have to be smart about it.” She leaned forward from the back seat so she was in between the driver’s and the passenger seat. 

Henry turned back in his seat to look at his daughter. “I think that we have to do a stakeout, before the show,” he said. “See who shows up to open the place up. See who works there. And try not to be seen in the process.” The way the younger man spoke, Thomas had no doubts that this wasn’t the first time Henry had ever planned a stakeout. Years of experience seemed to form his words. “What time does The Blue Village open?”

A quick google search later and Thomas said, “Six.”

“That means the earliest people that work there will start arriving will probably be five. Maybe four-thirty,” mused Henry. He checked his watch. “That leaves us with a few hours.” He stroked his chin. “Does Fairyland have a clock tower?”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Clock tower? I don’t think so.” It was a little bit too quaint for this place, even if it was named Fairyland. 

“Worth a shot,” he murmured. He glanced out through the dashboard out into the vague distance of buildings and roads. His forehead crinkled deeply as he left Thomas and Lucy to wonder in silence just what the author was planning. 

Thomas glanced in the rearview mirror to see what Lucy was up to, only to find her dark bistre eyes looking straight at him. He opened his mouth, trying to think of something to say to the girl, but Henry spared him the effort.

“Is there anything in Fairland,” began Henry suddenly, “that is… broken? Or vacant? Or not open?”

Thomas turned in his seat to look better at Henry, his forehead wrinkling.

“Just ‘cause, in Storybrooke, there was a clock tower, but it was stuck, frozen in time during the curse. It was on top of the library, which was closed until Belle woke up and became the librarian, and below that was a dragon protecting--”

“A dragon?” laughed Thomas. “A real dragon? Now that is something.” 

Henry smiled and said, “Yeah. You met her, actually. Her daughter and my mom had a complicated past, and she’s a dragon too. They’re both probably here somewhere.” His eyes scanned the scene before him, as if by some miracle the women he was talking about would walk right by. “But I was thinking, there might be something like that here.”

“Fairyland is a city,” said Thomas. “Something is always closed or out of order.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t say that I’ve noticed anything particularly… well…” For a moment he wracked his mind, trying to recall anything that could perhaps be of use to Henry. “I really can’t think of anything that might be of use.” 

With a tone that betrayed a hint of frustration. “The Curse probably doesn’t want you to notice stuff like that,” said Henry. “When I was trying to convince everyone that there was a Curse on Storybrooke, no one seemed particularly bothered by any oddities or noticed stuff like that.” 

“Maybe if we just drive into town, we might see something like the clocktower or library,” suggested Thomas. 

“Might be the best,” Henry said. He glanced over his shoulder and said, “Okay, Lucy, buckle up,” as he pulled his own seat belt across his lap. “Let’s go.” 

As the car started, Thomas turned his gaze to the suburban scene out of the window. Over the next few minutes of restless silence, Thomas watched the yards grow smaller and smaller, until finally, they practically vanished as the car entered the city again. Pedestrians began to appear on the sidewalks, strolling past shops and other business of Fairyland. The car began to slow, allowing for closer inspection of the passersby. 

“Who is that?” asked Lucy, pointing at a balding man jogging half-heartedly on the sidewalk.

Henry took his eyes off the road for a moment, and said, “I never actually learned his name, but I know he’s a Viking. Or used to be.” 

“A Viking?” repeated Thomas, staring at the man. It was hard to imagine the man in a tank and sweatpants holding a brightly painted round shield and a sword like the Vikings he had seen in movies and drawings. It was also hard to reconcile how a historic group of people could be here in Washington, but he supposed that with all the stories and legends that had been told about them over the years, not to mention their own myths and folklore, it was possible that they belonged here, just like Snow White and The Evil Queen. 

“And what about her?” Lucy pointed at a slender woman with a long black braid walking a speckled mutt.

“Oh, that’s Guinevere,” said Henry, his voice rising slightly with what Thomas could only interpret as surprise.

“What? Were you not expecting to see her here?” asked Thomas. He watched the legendary queen bend down, pulling out from her pocket a purple plastic bag, to perform a task he doubted that she had ever had to do in her former life. _Or is ‘real life’ a more accurate term?_ wondered Thomas, almost missing Henry’s answer. 

“Last I heard, she was in Camelot,” said Henry. “So either she came back to Storybrooke or the Curse affected more than just Storybrooke. But I don’t even know if that’s possible.” He paused. “It shouldn’t be. But… I don’t know that guy,” he gestured at a man in a green windbreaker talking on a cellphone, “and I’ve never seen that woman before…” He nodded at a woman in her mid-thirties pushing a stroller with a rather chubby toddler strapped in. “They’re not from Storybrooke. And if Fairyland is a city, but Storybrooke a small town…” His eyes met Thomas’s for a moment. 

“The people had to come from somewhere,” supplied Thomas.

“Exactly,” Henry said, giving a small nod. 

The car continued to roll on, at least five miles below the speed limit. Thomas marvelled at the fact that no one had honked at them or driven around them out of frustration. 

Abruptly, the car lurched forward to a quick stop. Inertia sent Thomas forward before his seatbelt caught him, reigning him back.

“What?” asked Lucy and Thomas in almost unison.

Henry’s hazel eyes had gone wide, as he stared at a tall woman crossing the street. Her thick red hair, streaked with white, fell down her back. Gaze directed straight ahead as she jaywalked past the silver Toyota, oblivious to the three people following her. 

“That’s… that’s my aunt. That’s Zelena.” 

“The Wicked Witch?” asked Thomas, remembering the illustrations that Lucy had showed him. There was certainly a resemblance, even if the woman seemed around a decade older than she had been in the drawings in the book. 

“We’ve got to follow her!” declared Lucy, her voice trailing upwards. 

“First I’ve got to find a place to park,” muttered Henry. 

Thomas pointed to a vacant space on the next block. “There’s a spot up there.”

On the sidewalk now, Zelena turned to proceed in the opposite direction of the car. Lucy unbuckled her seatbelt and got up on her knees, leaning against the back seat to watch out the rear window. “She’s going that way!” she said, pointing behind them.

“Damn it,” Henry swore under his breath. “Lucy,” he said in his normal tone as his eyes quickly flitted around the scene, “if I ever teach you how to drive, you never, ever should do this.” He quickly spun the wheel around, causing the car veer into a U-turn. 

Thomas barely had time to grip the handle above the door to brace himself against the turn. He could hear Lucy laughing in the back seat. He scanned the sidewalk for the redheaded woman. “Up there!” he said, pointing at the former Wicked Witch. 

“Charge!” shouted Lucy, with a laugh.

Henry pressed on the gas and the car lurched ahead just in time to see the woman turn down a one way street. 

As Henry put on the turn signal, Thomas said, “Don’t you think you’ve broken enough laws today, mate?”

“Since when did you care about the law?” the younger man asked.

“Since the curse I guess.” Pirates weren’t exactly known for following the rules of society, but Thomas had his limits. Even when he had been driving often rather than relying on the buses, he hadn’t ever gotten a speeding ticket. Seeing Henry, a man who was supposed to be his step-son, about to break another law, he felt obligated to speak up. 

“We’re going to lose her,” protested Lucy, craning her neck to try to follow the woman with her eyes. “Dad…”

Henry sighed and quickly pulled up to the curb right in front of a fire hydrant. Before Thomas could open his mouth, Henry was already saying, “Not a word. I’ll take the ticket.” 

Thomas sighed, but said nothing, instead opening the door and pulling himself up out of the car. He heard the sound of Henry’s car lock beeping as the three of them crossed the street to hurry to the side street. Lucy started running, something that Henry quickly began to do as well. Thomas quickened his pace, realizing why the father and daughter had started running as he started down the street properly. The woman was no where to be seen. 

“She’s not here,” said Lucy after stopping in front of another side road. She hurried down the block, much faster than Thomas could keep up with. “She’s not here either!” Even from the distance of a block, Thomas could hear the desperation in her voice.

“Stay there!” shouted Henry, as he tried to catch up with his daughter. Henry reached her within a few seconds, with Thomas coming up last, panting. “She wasn’t running,” began Henry. “So she has to be around here somewhere.” He turned around and scanned the linear park that ran parallel to the street. Neither the group of preteen girls walking by a small patch of wild flowers, nor the old couple feeding birds seemed to spark anything in Henry, nor was his aunt anywhere in sight. 

“Maybe she went into one of the shops,” suggested Thomas, nodding at the shops that lined the street. It was the best explanation he could think of as to how they could have lost the woman so quickly. 

Turning to face the nearest storefront, a shoe store, Henry said, “Possibly.” 

Lucy cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her face up against the window to peer into the shop.

“Is she in there?” asked Henry, leaning forward to try to see better into the shop.

Instead of answering, Lucy straightened up, shaking her head, and walked down to the next shop, Henry and Thomas trailing behind her. A quick pop into the second hand shop was enough for the three to ascertain that Zelena was not there. The next shop over, a cramped ice cream parlor likewise was proving unsuccessful for their witch hunt. Finally, “Is that her?” asked Thomas, pointing at the barista in the coffee shop. Her back was turned as she went about preparing something for a customer who stood in line, boredly scrolling through a phone. Even through the dark tinted windows, there was no mistaking the firy red of the woman’s hair.Henry nodded and opened the door, Lucy following suit. 

Thomas barely had time to register the logo on the door - a crescent moon overlapping the edge of a sun, with touching faces that looked almost like they were kissing. “I’ve been here before,” said Thomas. “West of the Moon.” He joined Henry and Lucy standing close enough to the counter so that they could read the menu displayed up on a chalkboard hanging about the bar. “They’ve got a great croissant.”

Henry didn’t seem to be listening, instead his eyes were trained on the back of the woman’s head, eyes almost boring into her. At last, the barista turned to hand the customer his drink, and Thomas heard Henry sigh. The woman standing behind the counter was most definitely not the same woman that they had seen crossing the street.

“Merida,” murmured Henry.

“Are you trying to swear?” laughed Thomas. 

“No,” said Henry. “That’s Merida. Only she’s straightened out her hair. When I saw her it was… wild.” 

“Oh well,” sighed Thomas. He turned around to exit the coffee shop, but he stopped when he felt Henry grab onto his right arm. “What?” he asked, looking back and Henry only to see that his stare was now focused somewhere else other than the redheaded barista. Thomas followed his gaze and saw in the corner of a shop, a petite woman with hair swept up into an elegant bun, except for a lock of silvery hair that had escaped, separate from the rest of her auburn hair, falling in front of her face, as she poured over a book, the rest of the four-person table occupied by several other books and legal pads with notes scrawled on it. 

Not missing out, Lucy asked, “Who is she?”

As if he was suddenly interested in the display of scones on the counter, Henry looked away from the older woman. “Belle,” he said softly. “That’s my step-grandmother.” 

Thomas couldn’t stop himself from giving the woman another look. “Where’s her beast?” The man who his prior self supposedly had spent centuries hating and plotting to kill. This woman and him had supposedly been friends before, back in Storybrooke. As he watched her gesticulate in conversation, he willed himself to feel something, some sort of spark of recognition, like the ones he felt before. Nothing came, and he quickly joined Henry in examining the scones. “How about you two go and get the table next to her,” whispered Thomas, “and I’ll get us something so we look like we belong.” They couldn’t be kicked out if they had bought something.

Henry nodded at the plan and motioned Lucy to follow him. While the two took a table several tables over from Belle’s - a better idea now that he thought about it - Thomas went to counter, glad that he wouldn’t have to wait in line. He smiled at the woman behind the cash register, trying to see the similarities between her and the cartoon that he remembered being advertized years ago. “Hello… Sally,” he said, reading the name tag pinned to her pink babydoll tee-shirt.

“Good afternoon,” she said, returning the smile. “Welcome to West of the Moon. What can I get for you today?” 

Though he had never actually seen the movie, Thomas was fairly sure that the Texan accent hadn’t been a part of it. “Two coffees,” said Thomas. “One with cream and one whatever sweetener you have handy.” He paused trying to remember just how Henry had liked his coffee. “The other with two sugars and a dash of cream.” It wasn’t too different from how Anna had liked her own coffee. She had always preferred her coffee sweet, but had liked a little more dairy in hers. “And a chocolate chip cookie,” he added, thinking of Lucy.

“Coming up.”

As Merida-Sally busied herself getting the order ready, Thomas leaned on the counter to try to casually glance in the direction of Belle. She seemed completely engrossed in the book, unaware of the fact that there were three pairs of eyes staring at her.

“Here ya go!”

Thomas practically jumped out of his skin, only to realize that it was just the barista back with his coffee. “Sorry.” He gave her a small apologetic smile. 

“Oh no worries,” she said. She paused. “I put everything on a tray.” She nodded at his prosthetic. 

“Thank you.” He pulled out a twenty dollar bill - more than enough to pay for the coffees and cookie. “That woman,” he said, his voice dropping low, even though Belle wasn’t really within earshot, “do you know who she is?”

“Yeah,” said Sally apprehensively. “She comes in here regularly. Professor of Literature up at the university.” Her voice dropped low and she gave a conspiratorial grin. “What? Would you like me to send her a coffee from you? Like from her special secret admirer at a bar. Always wanted to do that.”

Taken aback by the woman’s obvious eagerness to aid in the pursuit of romance, Thomas’s eyebrows went up. “I… I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, Henry and Lucy. Henry mouthed something that Thomas was fairly sure was ‘what.’ “Just her name, I guess.”

The woman’s smile faltered. “That’s Linda Argenteuil. She taught at least two of my brothers a couple years back,” she said. 

“Thanks.” He handed the redhead the money and picked up the tray and walked over to the table Henry and Lucy had picked out. The thrill of minor espionage and intelligence gathering made him quicken his pace. He sat down beside Lucy and handed her the cookie. As he handed Henry the coffee he said, “This one’s yours.” He leaned closer to the two of them. “Evidently your step-grandmum teaches English up at the university. Goes by Linda Argenteuil.” 

“That’s.... oddly fitting,” said Henry, surprise raising his voice upward. “Usually curses give people lives that don’t entirely…” He frowned and his voice dropped even lower. “She’s even dressed how she dressed in Storybrooke. But her shoes look far less painful. Makes me wonder…”

“Her shoes make you wonder?” asked Thomas glancing over to see the pair of strappy sandals on the professor’s feet.

“No, but her life makes me wonder if… if Mr. Gold cast the curse,” said Henry. He blew on his coffee.

“Isn’t Belle the person he loves most?” asked Thomas.

“His true love,” answered Lucy.

“There are many different kinds of love,” Henry said. “And you can use them to cast a curse.” He took a sip of his coffee, and Thomas followed suit only finding it much too hot still to drink without blowing on it first. Perhaps Henry was too worried to notice, supposed Thomas.

After a minute of silence, “You have to talk to her.”

Thomas stared at Henry. “Why me?”

“You were friends,” said Henry. “There should be some lingering spark or something. There was for people in the first curse. My grandmother became friends with Grumpy.”

It was a sign of just how much his perspective on the whole matter had changed over the course of mere hours that Thomas didn’t burst out laughing at such a ridiculous statement. He merely nodded it, and accepted that there was a chance that what Henry was saying was true, and if that chance allowed for the possibility that Anna or Emma or whatever her name truly was was in fact alive, Thomas was willing to entertain it. “Okay,” he said, getting up again.

“Worst comes to worse,” Henry continued, “you could just flirt with her.”

With a sigh, Thomas shook his head and turned around. As he drew closer to Belle, he could make out the title of the book that she was reading. “‘A Tale of Two Cities,’” he said out loud, standing a few feet from Belle’s table. “Been a few years since I read it, but I remember it was about the best and worst of times.” He grinned a little bit at his joke.

Startled at the sound of someone speaking to her, Belle’s eyes widened and flicked up to meet Thomas’s gaze. “Uh, yes,” she said. She cleared her throat and put a yellow ribbon in the book to mark her place. “More specifically it’s about the French Revolution.” She set the book down on the table. “I’m teaching a course this semester on historical fiction, and I like to prepare by re-reading all the books before the semester starts.” She nodded at the other scattered books on the table. “Or rather, I skim them at this point. I’ve read so many of them so many times, I could practically recite them.” She smiled a little.

“If you’re doing historical fiction and you’re reading ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, then you’ve got to read ‘Les Mis,’” said Thomas. 

Belle picked up her backpack and opened it to reveal a well-worn copy of Les Miserables. “Way ahead of you on that one,” she said with a wink. “I do it as a compare and contrast. Always get some interesting papers as a result.”

“I can imagine,” he said. He reached for an unoccupied chair at her table. “Mind if I sit here, Professor…” 

“Argenteuil.” She shook her head. “Not at all,” she got to her feet. “I actually should be going. I’ve got to pick my son up from practice. I’m just lucky you came over. I was quite enthralled by Dickens’ prose.” She began to put each book in her bag one by one.

A son. He glanced over at Henry and Lucy, both were leaning forward. He could imagine what they were thinking, as it was most likely the same question he was wondering. “Oh, well,” he said, awkwardly scratching his ear. “I had hoped to be sitting with you, but I suppose that you’ve got to your son… back to your husband.” The words felt so foreign to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had flirted with anyone. He hadn’t wanted to since Anna had died, and for years before that she had been the only one who he bantered with like that. Even back when he had been trying his hand at pick-up lines and cheeky jokes, he had never been particularly adept. As he spoke now, however, he felt an unprecedented ease that told him what timber to hold his voice at and where to pause for effect.

The professor stared at him for a moment before letting out a laugh. She put her final legal pad away and swung her backpack onto her shoulder. “No. Just me and my son,” she said. Walking around the table, she continued, “and I do appreciate the attention, I’m not really interested.” She tilted her head to the side and gave him a sympathetic smile. “You’re just not really my type.”

All Thomas could think to do was just nod and say, “Okay then.” He took a few steps back. “Have a good day.”

With a small wave the professor said, “You too,” before leaving the coffee shop.

Feeling a little bit defeated, Thomas returned to Henry and Lucy with a sigh. “So, we know she has a son, no husband, but not much else.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Sorry I couldn’t get much more out of her.” He picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip. Finally it was cool enough to swallow directly.

“It’s helpful, though,” Henry said. “What is really strange though, is that Professor Argenteuil was Belle. Without her memories. But she was pretty much Belle.” There was a pause. “And you were you. For a moment there.”

“Was I?” Thomas said. “I suppose that explains-” Before he could continue, he felt a buzzing from his pocket. He pulled out his phone and checked the screen to see a picture of his upstairs neighbor. “It’s Marvin.” 

“Blackbeard?” said Lucy with a grin.

“Sure.” He still had trouble seeing it. “Let me get this.” He got to his feet and hurried out of the cafe. Once he was outside, he tapped the answer icon on the screen. “Hey, Marvin?”

“So, you’re not going to believe this,” came Marvin’s voice, “but I’ve got your cat.”

“Which cat?” asked Thomas. Really it didn’t matter. The thought of any one of his cats out of the apartment where they were safe made him feel the push of worry. 

“Uh, Swan… She’s the big one, right?”

Even though Marvin couldn’t see him, Thomas nodded. “Yeah. That’s her. What happened?” He started walking back and forth, across the length of the building and back again.

“I’m not exactly sure, but I was gardening, and there I see this white thing across the street, and I look, and I see that it’s your cat! I don’t know how she got out,” Marvin said. “But somehow she did. Gave me quite the workout running after her. I don’t mind. I need it. But seriously, your cat can run.”

Anxiety still gripped him. “But you have her.” 

“Yes. She’s here with me now.”

There was an unmistakeable meow that immediately melted away some of the tension inside of him. “Good.” He paused. “What about the kittens?” If Swan could get out, then there was no reason to expect that the kittens couldn’t have followed their mother. And knowing them, the kittens had.

“I haven’t seen them.”

“Can you check for them?” Thomas asked, voice growing tight at the end. “Like, use the key under the rabbit statue out back? See if they’re inside. They should be there. They’re probably in my bedroom. And maybe see how Swan got out…” He kept on trying to remember what he could have possible left unlatched or open that could have allowed her to get loose. 

“Sure, no worries,” said Marvin’s voice reassuringly. “I’ll let you know what I find. Going to go find the rabbit.” With a click and a few dull beeps, the call ended.

Thomas tried to swallow, but found his mouth was too dry to do it without getting caught.

Hearing the tinkling of a bell as the door to the cafe opened, Thomas turned around to see Henry and Lucy coming out. “Sorry about that,” he apologized. “Marvin just…” Compared to Operation Wookie, the matter of a cat that had gotten out and been found and too possibly missing kittens really was nothing. “Nevermind.” He forced the corners of his lips to raise up into a feeble smile. “So what do we do for a stake-out?” he asked, hoping that whatever was going on at The Blue Village would be enough of a distraction to get him through however long it took for Marvin to find the kittens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all my lovely readers. I'm sorry that it's been so long, but between getting adjusted to medical school and a hurricane displacing me, I've had a few set-backs when it came to posting this chapter. I finally have found some kind of a balance, so I'm hoping that updates will be a little bit more regular from here on out (or at least, not one every few months). I really do want to get this whole story out. It really has taken on a life of its own, and I'm actually pretty excited about where it is going. I just hope you stick around to read it!  
> Thanks for reading,  
> Morgan  
> P.S. Comments and Kudos make my heart sing.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic owes its creation entirely to canwetalkaboutcaptainswan's post on Tumblr where she invited us to imagine Season Seven featuring Emma cursed to be a cat. Thinking about cat!Emma inspired me, and I knew that I had to write an AU fic that shamelessly borrows from The Aristocats. (Because everybody wants to be a cat.) 
> 
> It shall be a wild adventure, and I hope you'll stick around for the next installments of the fic!
> 
> Thank you,  
> Polarbearmorgan


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